My break from classes has been going well thus far 🙂 The girls and I had family pictures taken on Saturday (well…we gave it a go…not quite sure how the pictures will turn out because one of my daughters was tired and cranky and another was being defiant and whiny, but…I had a good time), and on Sunday we attended a Wizard of Oz themed Kids Festival!

Sleeping baby 🙂

Amara and Terra beneath the balloon arc

Riding ponies

Getting a fire safety lesson from the fire deputy

Showing off their sand necklaces

Climbing into the bounce house

Shooting apples into the trees

Aaugh! The Wicked Witch of the East is dead!

Amara made it through a hole and won a prize!

Terra made “Emerald City” out of sparkly green play-doh

The lion must have been hiding from the Wicked Witch of the West

After the festival we went to the playground 🙂

Today I got started on my cleaning (I am nowhere near finished), and I began scheduling interviews with babysitters. I think the interviews will go well; I’ve already got a feeling about the one I think will be the one 😉 I still have a ton of things to accomplish, but I’m attempting to just allow myself to take it slow and only do what I’m capable of doing without feeling too stressed and/or overwhelmed. Besides the unshakeable nightmare that I had last night (actually NOT about him this time, about the baby…it was terrible…that’s all I’ll say) things have been quite well. I’m hoping it only gets better throughout the week.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I have not been feeling very energetic and I haven’t been getting much done.

The laundry is clean, but not folded. The kitchen is clean, but there are boxes that still need to be taken to storage blocking 1/4 of the room. The rest of my house is in a decent disarray, nothing alarming, but it’s not what I’d want visitors to see. I don’t feel like making the house pretty. I just feel…meh.

I just want to play on my smartphone, eat Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars, watch H2 or the World Channel or A&E all day. I want to lie in bed awake, but be able to drift in and out of a daydream. I want to sleep. Goodness gracious how glorious it would be to get a truly good night’s sleep.

I feel so stagnant lately. Like I’m stuck. I’m late on my homework, finals are in two weeks, my last two courses start in one month. Today he has a hearing for the felony charges and soon there’s a pretrail hearing for my divorce. I’m just…all over the place, but I need to be focused. I need to stay on course. I’ve got to get through this. I’ve got to keep going. I cannot stop to think about it or I might realize how insane it seems that I’m trying to handle what I’m juggling.

This isn’t easy. Everyone who sees me says, “You’ve got your hands full,” and I just smile politely and nod my agreement while thinking to myself, “If you only knew.” Then I wonder what they know, or what they’re thinking. I look self-consciously at my empty ring finger and then at my 8 week old baby. Do they think I’m a whore? A loser? A welfare queen? It’s so embarrassing. I cannot stop thinking that everyone is judging me negatively, even when they smile.

Some days go so well. Some days I can push past this fear and this longing and this uncertainty and this constant knot inside my throat which chokes back sobbing. Some days I can relax and play with my daughters and soak in their innocence and zest. Sometimes I almost forget.

Nohra is over 11lbs at four weeks old! That’s a gain of 4lbs+ since birth 🙂

Today is my first day of feeling good again.

I was able to use various natural remedies (warm, moist heat and massaging, increasing my Vitamin C and taking Echinacea, increasing my fluid intake and resting) to beat mastitis without antibiotics. Yay! It also helped that Nohra is going through a growth spurt and was begging to nurse almost constantly these past few days.

I was in so much pain at times, but several things helped me to push through. One was knowing that I couldn’t afford to get any worse as there wasn’t anyone to care for my daughters. Another was that if I had to take antibiotics and transfer them to Nohra by nursing her I’d feel incredibly guilty. Another was that no one was here to comfort me regardless of how much I complained so it was better to stay tough (very similar to birthing). I’m happy to have won this battle. Thank you all so much for your kindness and advice!

Terra and Amara modeling their new sunglasses and outfits courtesy of my sister 🙂

Today was spent cleaning, trying to get back on track from several days of letting the girls go off their schedule and wreck the condo. It was bad. It still isn’t perfect, but today alone I got everyone bathed, the gerbil cage cleaned, the cloth diapers and the dishes washed, the bathroom cleaned, a load of laundry folded and put away, and a draft of my Master’s Project Prospectus completed.

The plan was to stop and celebrate every small victory along the way. Every cleaned body, room, dish, diaper and whatnot. But I was too busy scurrying to clean as quickly as I could each time I was able to put Nohra down to stop and enjoy each accomplishment. I can certainly say that being a single mother of three young children has made me much more efficient. I have no time to do anything slowly anymore.

There’s still a lot of cleaning to be done. My summer semester proposals need to be finished this week, there are bills to pay and appointments to make it to and Terra’s fourth birthday on Saturday. I cannot wrap my head around it all. When I dreamed of my adult life I never saw it being like this. I thought that I’d have babies, yes, but everything else was inconceivable. I do enjoy having children, I’m just eager to reach the period of our lives when I can share so much more with them.

There’s still so much I want out of life, but days like today I am certain that we’re going to be alright.

These past few days have been crazy. The girls and I did so much shopping that I think they’ll want to avoid leaving the house for several weeks. As I type, the cars are being covered by the snow in our condo parking lot. It looks nasty out there but I am extremely content. I’m excited to see what it will look like come morning.

The girls are excited to play in the snow, but I am so exhausted from shopping and cleaning that I think I’ll need a recuperation day. We went to the post office to make sure I had enough stamps for baby announcements and to send some mailings out. We went to the pharmacy to fill a prescription so I won’t have to worry about it a few weeks from now (when it will actually need to be filled). We went to the library to return CD’s and a book I’d checked out. We went to a laboratory to turn in a prenatal test I’d completed. We went to PetCo to stock up on Gerbil supplies, We went to Home Depot for batteries and whatnot. We went to the craft store to stock up on supplies for making Montessori materials. We went to Target for the California Baby diaper cream, breastmilk storage bags, and all the other items I needed in order to feel “ready” for Baby’s arrival, to Whole Foods and two other grocery stores to stock up on food. I’m probably forgetting something or somewhere.

It was exhausting. It took me several hours just to put away everything that we’d purchased! Surprisingly, the girls were in good spirits and were both very well behaved on each trip. I don’t want to give all of the credit to the new dual-screen DVD player or to the smartphone apps, though both came in handy. I was grateful for and pleased with the girls’ attitudes toward our intense shopping trips. I suppose I’m indebted to them now, and will have to brave the snow despite my Raynaud’s disease.

We really didn’t have to do very much blizzard prep. I was insanely prepared for Hurricane Sandy, after having been so horribly unprepared for Hurricane Irene. But Sandy never showed up in my neighborhood so I already had all of the extra water and candles and whatnot stocked. I focused more on the cleaning; everyone had a bath, the dishes are washed, the laundry is clean, the gerbil cage is clean, etc. If we lose power I do not want dirty dishes. If I have a homebirth I need to have enough clean linen.

So far no labor. I expect that she’ll come on Monday, as my other two came at almost exactly 40 weeks (Amara was one day after I was due and Terra was one day before). She is still breech as far as I know, but I never did make it to get another ultrasound. I am excited, and nervous as well. The fact that I’m going to have another child in a few days (give or take) is surreal. It’s really happening. I’m going to go through labor again. I’m going to push again. I’m going to feel that ring of fire again (…but I might not want to think too much about that). I’m going to hold a newborn baby girl in my arms and cry tears of joy.

I have been so anxious that I cannot get much sleep. OMG Baby is coming! I’d like to lounge around, watch TV, and fill out some sections of her memory book, but I have laundry to fold and homework to complete. I hope that Baby waits for the blizzard to pass by before making her appearance. Just in case she doesn’t, I’d better get to folding and studying.

After this delivery I’ll have birthed in a standard hospital (though we weren’t there very long before I delivered her), I’ll have had a homebirth (absolutely wonderful to experience), and I’ll have given birth at a place that’s a bit in-between one’s home and a medical facility.

The decision wasn’t easy, per say. After two successful, drug-free and intervention-free vaginal deliveries I really don’t see the need to leave my house while birthing, but…I’ll be alone. This time, not only in spirit, but I won’t have his body to knead like bread through the waves of contractions. I also don’t know if my mother or sister will be with me. So, even though I know that I have the strength to delivery my baby safely and peacefully, I’d rather not be alone.

I wanted to hire a homebirth midwife. I interviewed some and met one that I really liked, but that was months ago, when I thought I’d be better off financially by this time. However, I am not receiving child support, and with all of my other expenses I cannot afford to hire a midwife who isn’t covered by my insurance.

It does sadden me. I know that I’m fully capable of delivering my baby without anybody’s assistance. But with two little ones in the house who need tended to, and with us being so many miles away from a healthcare facility, it just seems safer to be with midwives during the delivery. Plus, I really don’t want to be alone.

2009 – Terra’s Homebirth

Birthing is difficult. It challenges your core strength as a person, as a woman, as a mother-to-be. It grounds you, and sweeps you off your feet simultaneously. It empowers you while bringing you to your knees. I love birthing. I feel the strength that I typically suppress consuming me. I am unstoppable and fully capable of riding out the rushes; in, out, up, down, squeeze, opening my body.

But I don’t want to be alone. Birth is a celebration. Someone come earth-side, someone taking their first breaths, someone welcomed to life. I want to be in good spirits when I push her through my bones, I want to give her a wonderful welcome. If I am not surrounded by loved ones, or loving midwives, it will be much more difficult to not succumb to the sadness, to the emptiness, to the fears. I do not want her to come into this world and be greeted by my grief.

I need the birthing center to distract me from brooding over him during labor and delivery. I do not want to focus on my worries, I cannot spend my labor wondering what my future holds. From my experience the best way to get through a delivery is to be totally present. It’s difficult though, when the sensations make you want to push against them or run away, and what is really going to help you is to embrace them, allow them to invade your idea of comfort, reorganize your concepts of control.

It still saddens me, that I cannot have another homebirth strictly for monetary reasons, that I will give birth to our third baby and he will not be there with me, that I will bring her into this world so uncertain of what will be. But I am happy that she’s coming. I am excited to prepare for her. The girls already consider her in everything that they do and enjoy imagining the ways that Baby will contribute once she’s here with us. I will do my best to bring her into this world safely and surrounded with love.

This may not be the situation of my dreams, but I’m still going to give birth naturally, and I’m going to make her earth-side entrance as positive and peaceful as can be.

This would have been my first time finding out early. I figured, hell, it’s my third baby. I was patient with the first two, and with everything else that’s going on I can at least give myself time to prepare for what I’m getting myself into. People say it doesn’t matter. Yes, as long as it’s a healthy baby I will be happy, but there is a lot to say about what each sex will mean/bring to our household.

I’m hoping for a boy because:

I’m 99.99% sure that this is my last baby, and I want a boy at some point. I’ve always wanted a boy, and it would be depressing to never be a mother to one.

I spent a good deal of money on clearance boy clothing at the outlet stores on my birthday, and now that I don’t know baby’s sex I cannot return anything.

It would change the dynamic between the siblings.

I hear they don’t whine nearly as much as little girls. Or act as dramatic. Or look you in the eye and tell you lies. I can handle rambunctious, but catty and cruel *shudders*

My husband has never had a boy, and I would like to be the woman to bear his first male child (I know…this sounds twisted with everything going on between us. Maybe it’s that patriarchal brainwashing I’m still overcoming, but I feel that it’s my duty to bear him a male child…though it’s not like it’s up to my body to decide anyway).

When my boy has grown up I will know that there is at least one good man out there in the world.

Having another girl is sure to be wonderful too:

I already know what I’m doing when it comes to raising girls.

I wouldn’t have to go clothes shopping for a very long time.

Both Amara and Terra keep saying that they’d prefer a baby sister.

I wouldn’t have the guilt of raising a male child without his father around (though there’s guilt with female children too).

In the end though, I didn’t find out today, and now I will wait until my delivery to find out the sex of my third baby. Long as the baby is healthy, by that point, I surely will not mind.